I posted a question that was closed as too localized. It was originally worded to be relevant to everyone outside the US (It was phrased: how can I securely access a website that requires a us ip?).

Now, if I count correctly there are 6.5 billion people who are outside the US and only 300 million that are - which means my question is relevant to 95.5% of the world's population. How is that too localized? Or, never mind the fact that it may have had a country name in the question, why didn't someone just edit it out instead of voting to close the question?

I think that on big QAs like this (AND stackoverflow) the pack mentality is just too much and requiring only five close voted, which are just simple clicks of the button as opposed to someone who put thought into writing a question and wants it to be answered to the benefit of himself and all, is just plain wrong.

The bottom line is that I think closing questions is too easy and may give people a sense of power that causes them to judge too quickly, especially when it comes to large groups (herd behaviour).

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    I've edited your question and reopened it, though I believe it has already been asked in a different shape or form (like accessing Hulu/Netflix/Pandora) – Ivo Flipse Jul 4 '12 at 20:34
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    I love how pack mentality is used as the universal accusation if someone doesn't like or understand what happens in a community. – Daniel Beck Jul 5 '12 at 4:45
  • @Daniel I've seen MANY cases where a big shot SO user decided to vote to close On a question that he believed needed to be closed but maybe others didn't think of closing when they saw it. – Ziv Jul 5 '12 at 4:57
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    What's your point? This is a fundamental part of the design of the sites: You don't like something, you vote. Enough votes get acted on. One user, unless an appointed moderator, doesn't have a lot of power, and is certainly not a "pack". – Daniel Beck Jul 5 '12 at 5:19
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    @DanielBeck Ah, but one user votes to close, and that will make some others think that maybe they too should vote to close. The mere presence of a close vote can influence others. Maybe the fact that others have already voted to close a question shouldn't be displayed. That would remove any "pack mentality". – Bon Gart Jul 6 '12 at 17:48
  • @Daniel I would like to expand upon Bon's argument with induction, if you see a question with four votes, even it you didn't think that the question is worthy of closing you would be tempted by the power to close a question in one click, the same thing happens when two votes are requires to close. You could argue that the same happens when there are only two close votes, and to get to that you only need one person who's "angry surfing" and someone who partly agrees. With the amount of users the big QAs have it's very easy to close a question with just one vote. – Ziv Jul 7 '12 at 19:11
  • @Ziv: "you would be tempted by the power to close a question in one click" If you're tempted to use a power just because you can, then I would say that you've got some personal issues to work out. "With the amount of users the big QAs have it's very easy to close a question with just one vote." No, it isn't. One vote can't do squat; it takes five, unless you're a moderator. – Nicol Bolas Jul 7 '12 at 20:29
  • Do you really believe that in such a huge community everyone is rational all the time? Be serious for a moment, does it not, under any circumstance, make sense that someone would close a question just because he can? And does it not make sense, that someone's opinion on whether a question should be closed, be biased by the fact that one other person has already voted to close? And does it not make sense, that someone would vote to close just because he's angry at his real life and releasing frustrations?? All it takes is five people, five isn't a lot. – Ziv Jul 7 '12 at 21:39
  • Don’t waste your time even thinking about the too localized flag, let alone worrying about it. I argued the crap out of it a while back and got bullied into submission by the mods and even Jeff Atwood himself. So don’t bother trying to fight it; just see if re-phrasing it like you did will manage to get your question to slip through. – Synetech Jul 8 '12 at 2:25

Too localized suffers from not being well-defined. Even moderator opinion is wildly inconsistent. We have opinions that:

OTOH, there seems to be some consensus that languages cannot be too localized, and some good arguments against countries being too localized as well. There's no real participation of diamond moderators though.

So, no, it's not being used too liberally (in that it were applied beyond its domain); the problem is that the domain of too localized is not properly defined by wide community consensus and voting applied consistent with that.


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